


Parenting in the Post-Apocalypse

by Khemi



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Diary/Journal, Dysfunctional Family, Ectobiology, Family Dynamics, Fatherhood, Interspecies Relationship(s), Minor Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas, Minor Jack Noir/Ms. Paint, Minor Jade Harley/Roxy Lalonde, Minor PM/Mayor, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, Minor Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket, Multi, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-06-09 08:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6899182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khemi/pseuds/Khemi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is James Crocker, and you have survived the end of the world.</p><p>Despite everything that was expected, this turned out to be a minor inconvenience at best.</p><p>What do you do now, you may ask?</p><p>You write a guidebook to everything you're learning about the brand new world around you, your extended family, your extended reality, and maybe along the way you find your own place in the unexpectedly bright post-apocalyptic future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ribbontype](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribbontype/gifts).



> Quick note: This isn't a "fix-it", this is just my personal fun thoughts about what a new world after the game might be like, put into a story and told in what I hope is an interesting way! There isn't enough Dad Crocker stuff out there so hopefully I can fix that a little, at least.
> 
> For Jay, who will once again note it's all the Good Ships.
> 
> This fic will be structured like the guidebook and written as such, so with that in mind, I'll let Mister Crocker take it away. :)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A note from the author. No, not that one.

**A Parent’s Guide to The Post-Apocalypse**

Or

 _A father’s attempt at deciphering_  
_the ongoing establishment of “Lil’ Earth”_ _  
and all the inhabitants, customs and curiosities therein._

 

 

A brief note regarding the name of the relocated planet, first and foremost. Despite my desire to call it something sensible such as simply _Earth_ , a name I’m sure has lost none of its relevance, the vote on a name split into three distinct factions with other intents.

One, led by the small Mayor creature, wished to call it _Greenland,_ and was disappointed to know Greenland was already taken, albeit destroyed, and that it had not in fact been all that green; the loud grey boy insisted we should call it _Afterus,_ and laughed somewhat manically about keeping a joke going before he was hastily dragged away by Dirk’s brother, who I am still surprised to learn is somehow sixteen despite how old he looked on television (note to self: ask him about his skincare regime later); the third group, the unexpected leader in our first votes, was the suggestion by Jake to call it _Pandora,_ a suggestion laughed at until the laughably large group of green men who follow him around constantly all voted in its favour and gave him an unfair advantage.

Luckily, I suppose, the Striders managed to convince the majority by form of a rapped declaration that _Lil’ Earth_ was the best option, despite its minor shortcoming of not actually having been a suggested option at all, and somehow it won the vote. I have been informed shortening it to just _Earth_ is a travesty, and that I should not do that. As such, I will continue to do it constantly, and with no remorse.

This note ended up less brief than I intended.

Perhaps I should find an editor.

 

-o-

 

Your name is James Crocker, and you have survived the end of the world.

Despite everything that was expected, this turned out to be a minor inconvenience at best.

What do you do now, you may ask?

Well, apparently you begin by learning an absurd number of names, discover that family trees have become so tangled they may as well be entirely discarded from use, and learn very quickly that humans are not alone in the universe and that the universe is in fact, as predicted, a computer simulation.

Also, a frog. Still not sure what to make of that.

Arranging thoughts when you are the only adult that isn’t made of chitin or felt is rather difficult, so I- you- honestly I have no idea what to do with the personage here. I’m told _you_ is thematically appropriate by Rose, but given it was said with a knowing smile and a wink that could _also_ be a prank of some description of which I am the punchline.

Or, rather, of which _you_ are the punchline.

Because you are James Crocker, somehow, and so am I. We will just have to puzzle this nonsense out together.

You’ve decided to write down everything you can figure out, in the hopes it will help someone (likely yourself) become a better parent to children who are far beyond what you were ever prepared to deal with, and to find out where on earth you fit one you’re no longer on the Earth that you knew, even though you are, actually, it’s simply the rest of the universe that’s different.

You’ll figure this out.

... _ I’ll _ figure this out.

I don’t really want to consider what might happen if I don’t.

 

-o-

 

The world began on a Friday, rather late in the day. That bothers you for some reason. You always assumed it would be a Monday, so everything could be neat and connected, but instead the first dawn on the new and questionably improved Earth was a Saturday.

The Gods rested on the first day, and then the second, decided a name on the third- they had been referring to it as  _this piece of shit rock_ until then- and on the fourth finally realised an entire populace sleeping under the stars was a romantic gesture but in no way took account of the fact there would still be rain in their Utopia.

Cans were not how you expected that situation to be solved. They are thankfully quite easy to adjust to once you scrub out the smell of soup or beans.

Progress is jumpy now. Erratic. Some jump on ideas as they come, others bide their time and make notes in the corner, and some people, meaning  _you,_ spend all your time worrying about if both of those groups are actually remembering to eat, or drink, and hoping your sense of dramatic irony isn't enough that a death by starvation or thirst would be considered  _Just._

Jane says she could bring them back to life, and you aren't really sure what to make of that. You believe her, obviously. You believe just about everything now, and Jake insists with a smile that that makes it all true, or at least a little  _more_ true, or  _something._ He's a strange boy, but growing up alone on an island will do that to you.

So will growing up alone in an ocean, or on a  _different_ yet remarkably similar island, or being cared for by a demonically possessed man with a sword, or growing up drunk before your sixteenth birthday, or-

Well.

There's a lot to work through, here.

At least you have Jane, and your father, who is also your son apparently, although he says in his world you'd simply never forget to shave and insists this proves some greater difference between his father-father and his father-son in relation to him as a son-father.  To your credit, all of your shaving cream was rather dramatically destroyed in what Karkat referred to as  _"hate-flirting"_ between John and Terezi, complete with the strained finger quotes and implied roll of his eyes.

It still feels impolite to say John.

But that's his  _name,_ dammit.

You'll adjust. He can turn into thin air and summon typhoons with a wave of his hand, for pity's sake. The fact he's called  _John_ and would like you to use his name is  _hardly_ the biggest thing for you to get over, and yet here you are, happily accepting that the cooling breeze slipping through the nearby window has a chance of being your ecto-whatever-it-was father sneaking back in from some exploit, but struggling with the notion that you are now on first-name terms with said impossible man.

Well, almost on first-name terms.

After a very complex ten second long discussion, he decided you're going to be  _Dad._

You're still not sure how that makes you feel.

The Dignitary is here with a coffee, so you suppose it's as good a time as any to end what barely constitutes an introduction and is more likely a window into the messy and muddled mind of a man who is certainly slipping into some sort of stress-induced delirium.

The world ended, and then it didn't. Your reality was fractured, and now you're putting it back together, one piece at a time.

_ There, there, _  the Dignitary is saying.  _A distinguished gent like yourself will figure this all out in no time, you'll see._

You aren't sure he is correct, but you owe it to yourself, and more importantly to the suddenly large number of children who need you, to try.

You have been many things in your lifetime, but at the end of the world you were a father, and so a father you remain now the end-times have passed and a beginning dawns unsteadily beyond them.

 

 

You still need to find an editor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are welcome and I'll try to answer every one!


	2. Creation Myths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the topic of this world's creation, as according to its current residents.
> 
> _Graciously edited and annotated by Miss Rose Lalonde._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The previous author seems to have become notably absent, so you will simply have to take over writing these notes and any additional commentary yourself. Thanks must be given to Rose for her efforts in assisting your attempt at keeping the following text at least passably focused.
> 
> You have also found a scrap of paper in friendly capitals informing you it would be a good idea to thank [Jane Strider](http://janestrider.tumblr.com/) \- odd, that is most definitely not your daughter's name and you weren't informed of any changes - and [Dirkar](http://dirkar.tumblr.com/), which you have a terrible feeling may be Dirk's "Trollsona", but you are too afraid to ask him and confirm it. Their inspiration, the capitals note, is something you are grateful for, which you will nod and accept rather than question to the point the cracked fourth wall shatters entirely.

In the beginning, there was a Frog.

It was actually rather a spectacle; a rainbow trail across the sky like a shooting star of compressed pride rather befitting a gay singularity such as our troupe has come to comprise which flourished into an amphibian vast and impossible in nature, a galactic spawn that held within in all of the reality you have come to call home. You could have gazed upon its surreal visage for an eternity had events not pulled you forward into the future held in its translucent belly.

As it was, for a mere fleeting moment you beheld the universe, and then you found it all around you.

The story of how you survived your brief stint in outer space without being immortal is actually an exercise in how frantic fumbles can be mistaken for some sort of talent. There likely was a moment your death was assured, just as it was for all the others we had somewhat quickly forgotten died from pretty much anything if it hit them hard enough. Terezi and Dave spent quite a while establishing the best possible timeline in which, by pure coincidence, we all happened to do the precise sequence of things necessary to pull you forward in time to a location on our dearest Little Earth that was not in some way deadly to you.

My personal favourite facet of the clusterfuck that ensued was Dirk sneezing so hard his soul briefly left his body, causing Jake to hopesplode out of terror. These are the moments dreams are made of.

The creation myths of Earth are already as varied as they can be outlandish. You yourself still are not sure of all the details, as the last time Jade offered to tell you she was distracted part-way through something about a violin by a ball being thrown nearby and promptly teleported off to fetch it. _Kids these days,_ remarked the Dignitary as you watched her go,  _back in my day we didn't have any of this supernatural godhood nonsense. If we wanted to catch balls in our mouths we just sauntered along on our feet and they were good enough for us, damn straight._

This thought would console you more if it didn't come from the lipless maw of a being you are still fairly sure is some type of crustacean.

Really? Crustacean? Fascinating. I always associated them more with Golems or the like. I wonder what our difference in opinion indicates about our respective world views?

To occupy yourself you enlisted the help of the Mayor and the newly appointed City Postmaster to document these myths as best you could. A short summary of your favourites follows, along with your thoughts on the matter.

I would question how such  _myths_ exist given everyone here experienced the truth a month or so ago from their perspective, but then I recalled we are living with sentient turtles and salamanders who are amazed every time they come across something as thrilling as a hat, and I realised the answer.

 

\- o -

 

One of the first legends to appear centred around what was true to a large segment of the population: that a golden ark descended from the sky as the world was ending, and the chosen of the Gods ascended into their magnificent vessel to journey to their utopia. Just how long this journey was seems hotly contested a debate which is not at all helped by Davepeta informing anyone who will listen that technically the various timelines involved mean their journey was eternal and is in fact still ongoing somewhen in Paradox Space, and no one can quite agree on what branded them as the Chosen, either. The most complete version of this myth is told by a particularly spirited Salamander whose name is ~~hotly contested~~ Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer , who tells a dramatic tale of kidnapping and child enslavement leading to the purification of their soul for the "Ascension". In this version of the myth the journey is "endless, for in truth, we are all still adrift upon the sea of existence", and the golden ark which was clearly visible from the place I spoke with them is "entirely metaphorical, a reflection on the condition of all living things" and its physical presence is in no way proof to the contrary. I inquired how this was possible, and the Salamander simply said "ah, you see? You see? Ahhh," over and over until I left. I have never been so proud.

A very particular version of this myth centres around ~~fath~~ ~~my so~~ John  who you seem fascinatingly conflicted about despite your claims to the contrary at dinner and reflects the fact that his death was well known amongst the travellers, but he reappeared from the air itself when needed and brought all his "children" how did writing that make you feel, I wonder to salvation. This version involves the golden ark being a literal vessel at least, and commonly agrees the journey took three years. However, the view of John is understandably messiah-like and the avid fascination with him that it has caused has left him noticeably unsettled on multiple occasions. Holy signs are all fun and games until someone is wearing a tiny copy of your lifeless body around their throat, it seems.

 

 

-o-

 

Another myth is more complex and delightful, and is more popular among the Carapacians, particularly the Dersites. Their news outlets, the Dignitary informs me, could convince someone the sky was red, and this has gone a long way to popularise the following tale despite the short time it has had to spread. I have reproduced this myth as it was told to me by the Dignitary, who heard is from _that Noir guy with the good business sense,_ who read it in Tuesday's paper.

 

> _Alright so here's the lowdown as far as I've heard. That tall dame with the nice hat, you seen her right? The Postmistress or whatever? Well rumours have it that she's some kind of prophet who was sent by the Gods to remind themselves of their own purpose. The usual time-travel shitpile that's waiting in every closet to spill out the moment someone breathes about how sensible everything seems to be, yeah? They say she got handed goods a couple times, had to carry huge burdens because the Gods' hands were too pure to bear them, yadayada, the point is she's a stone cold badass and she threw something into a volcano and long story short the sheer might of her rage and passion lit the fires that the new universe came out of. Seems like a lot of trouble to me, I mean, a volcano? Dramatic explosions of creation? Someone should've taught these kids to take their time and do it properly, no offence to you. If anything you're the best thing that happened to this crowd. That gal of yours does pretty well for herself, sharp head on her shoulders, she's even taken us down a few notches at Poker and that's definitely all credit to an old man who- Oh, right. That story. Sure._
> 
> _Anyway they say that the Gods just put all the seeds in place, you know, plant a flower in soil, shove a frog in a volcano, it's all the same shit when you break it down. They say they were waiting for their whole holy righteous one, which sounds like a lot of hot air to me, and there's one camp who figure it's the short fella with the reasonable tax policies- the Mayor, right? But the bigger camp says no way, there's this whole thematic nuance to the whole affair, it's gotta be the broad. There's symbolism involved, some stuff about the post and wings and some weird flapping over a bunny I didn't really get but Jack got all severe and nodded seriously at like it meant something? Bridging worlds and accompanying the Gods and some sort of transcendence she willingly gave up, epic stuff, probably all absolute bull but Jack swears by it and that's enough it got me thinking._
> 
> _I figure they might be right. Have you spoken to her? That dame could snap me in two over her thigh and make a mean casserole with the pieces, you feel? If anyone's the chosen of anybody, she's the sort of mean mother- Er. The sort of lady I want standing for me._
> 
> _Hey, keep those insinuations to yourself, she ain't my type and even if she was she's clearly taken. That man of hers might look sweet as sugar but sakes alive, you heard him talk? The mouth on that one, I tell ya, no wonder those Strider kids are all over him like blue to a speakeasy._
> 
> _No, I have no idea what a speakeasy is, it's just a phrase, you know? What? Those are real? Wait **gangsters?** Because they banned  **what?** Holy smokes move the fuck over and let me sit down, this I gotta hear-_

Ahem. You think that's enough transcribing _that_ recording, despite how much you would like to capture the rest of that particular cultural exchange.

Interesting that they've moved their focus to our dear Post Mistress. Perhaps they aren't entirely mistaken, either? I have heard interesting tales of her exploits, and she is the one who freed the frog before we had actually thought to do it. Is she the white figure I've seen them making windows of? I had foolishly dismissed it as iconography from a religion I suppose no longer exists, but this makes far more sense. I am sure Kanaya would be fascinated by the idea of the Carapacian's holy figure being a powerful woman. I know I find the idea simply marvellous.

As for yourself, you think there is no shame in people looking for themselves in myths, instead of Gods they cannot comprehend. If you could invite them all to dinner that they might see your children are just that, perhaps things would change, but as it is to most outside your home they are nothing but figures of power and myth; they are beings who can change time, create new life, see the future, become one with the wind, and more so many times over even you struggle to comprehend it. There are times you do feel distant from this Pantheon that has come from children you once knew. There are times you wonder what that means ~~, and if it makes you a bad father~~.

You can only continue as you have so far, doing the best you are capable of, and hope that in the end you do as well as any father can by his children.

I think I will leave here, but perhaps you should talk to Jane, and to John? We have long since learned our lessons. A child will do what is best for their father.

 

-o-

 

~~I had nearly-~~ You had nearly forgotten one final addendum, caught up as you were in your thoughts. The last myth to explore is the one told by an even stranger source.

Since you began exploring alone you have found what seen to be children's drawings, littering the forest as though someone has been leaving them there. You are unsure if it is one of the Consorts, or Carapacians, or even one of the children- but you have pieced them together into a story that speaks of creation like all the rest, but speaks of things you haven't encountered.

In the beginning, a boy stands in his bedroom. This boy will do many things, become many others, only passing glimpses of which you've found. But this boy becomes a God, and then this boy becomes something more, and eventually he becomes something the universe cannot hold, and it shatters, cracks around all the edges and falls in on itself, and from the darkness comes something new. It is a doorway, one that was not built but stolen, and it leads somewhere much like you are now, with people much like those you surround yourself with, but this tale of creation is bitter in the words that edge the pictures.

For this world is not what was meant to be, it says. A cycle broken and a certainty taken; an ending instead of a beginning, and a reward not gained but lost.

This is not a story of Gods leading to greatness, or Prophets carrying legends on their shoulders. This is a story where the deserving ends with nothing, and a world is made from the ashes of even greater possibilities, lost in its inception. You are not sure what that future might have been, nor what it is about this one that is so terrible; but you remember the cataclysm that took the life you had thought might last forever, mundane and simple, and you wonder if these pictures speak of the same bitterness you feel in your chest some days when you watch your daughter flying and remember when she, like you, could only walk slowly and hope not to be left behind.

You wonder, as you collect these pictures into a book, if you will ever come across the artist.

You are not sure if you want to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps Rose isn't going to keep this writing as organised as you'd hoped.
> 
> Dirk offered his services, you recall. You will have to enquire after them, and see if that arrangement serves you any better.

**Author's Note:**

> You find a scrap of paper that resembles a slightly chewed business-card, comprising a poorly drawn figure of indeterminate gender helpfully announcing the following:
> 
>  
> 
> _I can be found on[Tumblr](http://khemi.tumblr.com/), and my [ask box](http://khemi.tumblr.com/ask) is always open! If you want me to see something, tag it #khemi_
> 
>  
> 
> You tuck the business card in your pocket for later. You never know when such paraphernalia will become useful, you see.


End file.
